/lit/ - Literature

>>11058850
I feel bad for you. because you choose to come to a board with immature and anti-semitic teenagers heavily influenced by /pol. Neither the person you responded to, nor the people who responded to your post have made even a fraction of the effort to post something with substance to respond to your points.

If you're looking for serious discussion you've come to the wrong place. /lit/ now is exclusively a place for racist, antisemitic dilettantes who would rather spam tired memes and generic questions than engage in any serious discussion.

I'd suggest you find other groups. Preferably people irl who are somewhat sincere and not as caustic and influenced by shitty internet subcultures. You'll feel happier being among them and discussions with them will be more fruitful.

quit this board.

To be honest, as edgy and retarded OP sounds right now and irrespective of how immature a way he has chosen to convey his idea, I feel that there is some substance behind the argument that the purpose of life is to perpetuate itself.

OP obviously made this thread as bait to rile up people here by saying that "if you're not having sex then you're a loser blah blah blah" but lets try to legitimately and seriously entertain the thought that perhaps the point of life is to reproduce.

Almost every biological function that we are imbued with has one goal: survival and perpetuation: of the individual and the species.

Most of our instincts and complex behavior can be found to be rooted in our primitive urges to hunt, mate, seek shelter etc. We're biological machines who have evolved to survive as a species and continue to perpetuate our genes.

>But anon, how about the fact that we can appreciate beauty? Can feel happy? feel love?

Our notion of beauty can be explained by our evolutionary instinct to look for a fertile partner or an environment that seems safe and comfortable. When you see a good hip to waist ratio and a symmetric face then you instinctively think that she will be able to birth your progeny and is free of disease. When you see a beautiful landscape, you get the instinctive feeling of a safe and nourishing environment. When you see beauty in something complex, it is because it helps you develop your abstract thinking capabilities which in turn help you survive.
we feel love for obvious biological reasons rooted in mating and perpetuating our genes.

is there a single thing that we do that can not be found to be rooted in perpetuating our genes? and what is the one tool we've been giving to perpetuate our genes? fucking.

so yeah. fucking might just be the purpose that we're born for.

HOWEVER, one can consciously choose to deny it. or you think you're choosing to deny it but your denial in actuality will again be rooted in some way of your instinct to survive and perpetuate which means that you'd be a walking contradiction and freak of nature.

so OP might be a juvenile cunt but his statement might have some serious merit desu.

I'm glad you made a thread on philosophical pessimism OP. However, most people tend to view it only with the view that you put: the emptiness and dissatisfaction that never seems to go away.

Take a few minutes to read this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pessimism#Philosophical_pessimism
Philosophical pessimism is a lot more than just the lament of being stuck on a ceaseless chase until death.

>>8421863
>>8421933

Everyone tends to forget that stoicism is primarily a defense (a great one) against grief, pain, worry and misery. However, It generally doesn't provide any significant answers on how to be happy. At the most it tells you to live a virtuous, civil life. It doesn't go beyond that. It doesn't tell you what to do when you've tried to live a virtuous and civil life and failed to find any satisfaction or significant happiness. It just assumes that a virtuous, civil life will bring satisfaction and stops there.

As for Epicureanism, it also espouses a remedy (that of moderate pleasures) and stops there without considering the possibility of an individual who might not derive contentment from such a life.

What then? What now? What do we do?
I think the solution lies in the answer to the question "Do we have the ability to change the utility we attach to the things that affect us and to what extent can you change it?" I believe that the answer to this question will tell you if you can live a happy life or not.

I suspect that some utilities (such as the "NEED" for food, sex and companionship) are hardwired into us and that if we don't get these then we're fucked.
Other utilities (such as the "WANT" for luxury, cars, big houses) are those that we adopt by learning from the environment and can be changed to a greater degree.

So if you want to escape this shitty chase of dissatisfaction, try to attach lesser value to the things that evoke dissatisfaction and disappointment and more to those that don't. EVEN after that, the emptiness won't go away. You will just end up being distracted enough from it. And that is the best that you can do in my opinion. to let the dopamine take you high and do its work from distracting you. Those who're not happy end up being more self aware of this emptiness which fucks them up more. those who're happy (have found distractions in family, career etc) don't have to face it. They go their entire lives living or chasing that high.

this board. what happened to it....

>>8036611
I suspect that by dysfunctional you simply mean "far from the social norm" and by "Growing" you mean fitting into the generic social norms.

They're all good at academics and are sort of successful at securing their careers and good future prospects. They however suck at dating and developing close relationships with women or people outside their circle (those who're a bit close to the unironic social norm).

What do you mean by "grow and not stagnate" if not by "shifting close to the generic average social behavior"? I think their conversational style developed in response to the disdain they have for the average person and the want to distance themselves from his/her habits.

>>7956068
>>7956079

I wonder what sartre would have to say to a starving african child born in abject poverty.

Heey lit

I rarely smoke, but tonight I will. Which of the following books should I read when high?

-Naked lunch
-The soft machine
-GR
-The book of disquiet
-Fear and loathing in Las Vegas
-Portnoy's complaint
-Beautiful losers
-The castle
-The erasers

This is just my opinion, man.